GRAVITY, GROWTH & MINOR IRRITATIONS

You can tell that you’re feeling really fatigued when the very first thing you do in the morning is greeted by the shattering of glass as you reach for a bowl to put some of your breakfast cereal into and there is a cascade of crockery from the dish drainer as the “Jack Straws” tower which you built during the last bout of washing up collapses and breaks more of the glassware.

Later on, I switched on the computer and it froze and began to search for a wireless mouse. One that I neither have nor need as there is a perfectly serviceable one already attached to it which it was choosing to ignore in favour of its new sense of preferred world order. It seems that the machines are indeed rising after all, and the day of the human is passing...

Already I was thinking that it was going to turn out to be another one of “those” days which, whilst it ultimately contains nothing truly awful in itself, adds up to another of the kinds of day in life that you emerge from happy to survive despite everything, and you look back on as being a bit of an endurance test. The kind of mildly irritating day which you are unlikely to ever remember with any lasting fondness.

But, as usual, none of these things are huge calamities in the great scheme of things and so I muddled through and proceeded with a certain amount of caution. After all, it might not have been one of those Fridays of the thirteenth persuasion (not that it was a Friday) or anything superstitiously significant like that, but when the slightest wrong move can result in a trip or a stumble or a choking or an avalanche of pots and pans, it’s best to pay heed to what the fates are telling you and watch out for yourself.

Still, having managed not to choke on my Fruit and Fibre (the choking moment would wait until after the evening biscuit…), or to lose any digits to the bread knife, I went about my normal routine and got into my car for the commute to work, and the suspect starter motor and the perhaps slightly worn-out battery both failed in their own peculiar individual quests to punch a hole in my morning.

Both of those, I suspect, could see which way the wind was blowing and decided to keep their powder dry for another day. After all, how shocking can the unexpected be when you’ve come to fully expect it…?

Nevertheless, whilst I managed to avoid the kamikaze cat and the undertaking speeders, and actually managed to traverse a 20 m.p.h. zone at 20 m.p.h. for once without somebody lurking upon my back bumper trying to bully me into hurrying along even though the schools have returned to work, the only real problem encountered on the journey was a set of failed traffic lights which are always a lot of fun in the rush hour.

I even found the time to gaze at a poster advertising a “Nacho Stacker” - a product which looked, quite frankly, ghastly, but which also reminded me that most “fast food” is just “bad food aimed squarely at kids” and people of my age weren’t supposed to find such a thing appetising at all, and that was such a tiny (and internal) rant in the grand scheme of things that I didn’t even bother mentioning it to anyone later, even after I saw a different version of the same poster again later on.

Perhaps I am learning…?

Perhaps I am finally going through some personal growth…?

Perhaps not…

Nevertheless this mildly aggravating day progressed. There were only two tense early morning “discussions” (you might have considered them to be arguments) with my mother over the telephone as we disagreed about how much I should hassle the hospital about her imminent release back into the big wide world. In the end it wasn’t quite so “imminent” as she believed, and so we had to return to the usual status quo of the “waiting” game and I remained on standby with another evening of fatigued visiting despite having nothing much new to say in prospect.

Plastic bottles then managed to act as if possessed and leap from my desk and then did so again after I’d picked them up. The empty plastic milk carton went one better and lost three points for a refusal to go into the bin (despite the oche being a mere foot or so long) and instead bounced of the edge and went for one final dance across the floor of the kitchenette…

But that was gravity’s hast hurrah for the day and once I was able to get my head down and focus upon my project, the rest of the day progressed more calmly, apart from the constant interruptions from the hospital ward and my growing sense of having a lack of direction for this project, the journey back along the motorway being plagued by idiots, the till I chose in the supermarket being precisely the wrong one for me to make a swift exit, the incident with the biscuit, the…

Ah you get the picture…

And I’m sure that it was no better or worse than the whole stack of minor irritations which plagued your day, too.

You, however, are wise enough NOT to go on about it, so…

Well done you…!

Now, what’s your secret…?